HomeschoolMathonline.com is a powerful free resource for homeschooling students, parents and teachers. The site includes comprehensive math instruction (by John Zimmerman) that mostly focuses on middle and high school mathematics. The goal of the site is to get homeschool students to truly understand the core math concepts and skills that are essential for mastery of college prep math.

Make Your Homeschooler Show Work- Improve by 50%

One of the best things you can do for your homeschooler to become a better mathematician is to ensure they show their math work. I will give you some examples(below) to illustrate my point but know this- if your child is showing little to no work in their practice they will not become proficient at math. A BIG part of teaching a student math is getting them to master excellent problem solving habits. Of course many students can do “ok” for a while by skipping steps, not being neat and organized however these poor math habits will catch up to them in a bad way.

Now you might be asking how much work should my child show? Well the answer is subjective and hard to answer so here are a few general guidelines to follow:

Your homeschooler’s practice work should look like the example problems demonstrated by the teacher or textbook- examples should also be in their notes.

Each step of the problem should be written on its own line

You should be able to “read” and follow the solution they wrote

Example 1

Example 2

It’s up to you as a homeschool parent to ensure these standards. You may have a real battle to get your child to be neat and organized doing math- as a parent myself I understand. However, you must never give into sloppy work or practice with no supporting evidence of understanding as it will lead to major math problems. Lastly over the years I have been teaching math, sloppy work accounts for at least 50% of errors I have seen. So if you can correct any poor working habits that your child may have I can assure you their grades could increase as much as 50%.